Women Candidates Often Shorted By Wal-Mart PAC

Retail giant Wal-Mart — which won a sweeping victory from the U.S. Supreme Court Monday in a class-action lawsuit that alleged discrimination against its women employees — has long preferred men when it comes to doling out its campaign cash.

During the same period, Wal-Mart’s PAC donated to just 30 women who were general election candidates of either the Democratic or Republican Party. That’s about 12 percent of all House candidates the company’s PAC backed.

That figure is also about two percentage points lower than the average business PAC.

Overall during the 2010 election cycle, about 2,400 business PACs made donations to U.S. House candidates. And about 14 percent of their contributions benefited female candidates, according to the Center’s analysis.

During the 2010 election cycle, about 11 percent of all Republican U.S. House candidates on the ballot in November were female and about 22 percent of all Democratic U.S. House candidates were women. (Democrats typically run about twice as many female House candidates than the GOP, according to the Center’s research.)

Since the 2000 election cycle, Wal-Mart’s PAC’s donations to women general election House candidates has always been below that of the average business PAC.

A spokesman for Wal-Mart’s PAC could not immediately be reached for comment.

Wal-Mart’s PAC’s support for women House candidates fell farthest behind the average during the 2002 election cycle, when just 9 percent of the general election candidates running for U.S. House seats the company backed were women — five percentage points below the business PAC average.

And during the 2004 election cycle, Wal-Mart PAC’s support of women candidates proved to be nearly — but not exactly — commensurate with the average business PAC’s support. That cycle, women constituted 12.6 percent of the general election candidates for U.S. House seats Wal-Mart’s PAC supported, compared to 13.0 percent for the average business PAC.

For its part, the Wal-Mart PAC has traditionally leaned Republican with its giving since its emergence in the early 1990s.

During the past decade, it has increased its support of Democratic candidates, with the 2010 cycle marking the first time Wal-Mart has contributed more to federal Democratic politicians than Republican ones.

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